Having read some dungeon/game/whatever master guides for some roleplaying games for fun, I've noticed the part that gets paid most attention to is the "how to keep the players fenced in the area you've prepared" section.
What kind of RPGs are those? Most GM advice is all about being flexible and figuring out what kind of game and play style the players enjoy most. Fencing them in has generally been considered one of the worst, frustrating and most destructive things a GM can do. And the fact that so many CRPGs do exactly that, frustrates me to no end. And that's exactly why I'd like to see games with an active GM AI making the game more flexible and dynamic. I don't doubt this is extremely hard, but I'd still like to see some experimentation in that direction.
"While the theme of the game (You Only Get One) was a pre-coded template, Angelina chose the color of the walls, the textures, the ambient sound track." and did a shitty job at doing it.
That's not very interesting. What would interest me is AI that shapes and modifies the game while you play it, based on your taste and play style.
One example: my Nexus 7 draws so much power, even when sleeping, that it is possible to connect it to a weakly charging USB port, come back a few hours later, and it has a lower charge level. I'm sure the same is true for other tablets, and possibly even some phones.
I've had this with my old Motorola Milestone. It lost power while charging on a weak charger. Even when turned off, it sometimes refuses to charge. Probably because it's old. I need higher powered chargers, or maybe a new phone.
I think they're drumming up the fire story because it shows how safe the car is. It looks superficially like bad PR, but it is actually very good PR, once you look at the data.
I doubt Musk cares much about expectations. Releasing a totally new product in inherently unpredictable. But showing people how good their car really is, that is a lot more interesting.
You make a lot of unfounded claims, but you're wrong. Just solar alone can easily power the world many times over if we want to. The problem is that the political will is lacking. And solar isn't even the most abundant power source. Geothermal has many times that capacity.
The only thing we need is an efficient way to even out the difference between fluctuation demand and fluctuating supply. Nuclear can't do that; it produces a steady output, which is great for a baseline load, but not suitable for meeting the fluctuations in demand. At the moment, that's done by gas turbines. I'm not sure how suitable geothermal or hydro would be for that.
There are still tons of ways to conserve energy without having to live in the cold. Europe and the US are really enormously wasteful with energy. Better insulation can save a lot of energy. More efficient cars. LED lighting. Smarter lighting that turns off when nobody is using it. Or, you know, just turning the light off yourself when you leave a room (for some mysterious reason my parents always leave the light on in their garage and I can't get them to stop).
And then there's the tremendous amount of food that we simply throw away. Now there's a serious case of wastefulness. That food used space and sunlight, probably a lot of chemicals, was harvested, transported, processed, transported again, possibly cooked, and then thrown away for no benefit to anyone. And if it was meat, it went through this process a dozen times over. We need to stop wasting food.
Also, energy prices have some breakpoints that sometimes lead to industries having to waste energy to save money. There's a lot of really stupid waste out there that has nothing to do with giving up anything you actually need.
If you have that many cases, you shouldn't implement them as a switch. A hashtable of function pointers, or functor objects, or command pattern instances, or similar, depending on your language and context.
I'm not too familiar with the implementation details, but isn't a switch statement basically a lightweight hash table without the hashing? (since everything is already an int)
To me, a switch statement is the one exception where a function is allowed to be long. The basic rule to me is: the function should do only one thing. If it's more, split it up. A switch is a single thing that can take up a lot of lines, but the function should only have that switch, and each case should be short, simple and concise, or it should call a function that does the actual work for that case.
Basically, you'd need a switch with over a thousand cases to end up at 5500 lines.
That's exactly how I work. I've learned at least one new language right at the start of every new job, and even for languages I've got years of experience in, I still look stuff up. Thanks to Google, looking up language or framework specific stuff takes almost no time.
Learning how to plan is where I currently am. Pulling a number out of thin air clearly doesn't work. You need to cut the task up into smaller tasks, and those into smaller tasks still, and then describe the smallest, most trivial tasks in sufficient detail that anyone understands what it means. Once you've done that, you understand your problem well enough to estimate all the parts, add them up, and then multiply by 2 because you've certainly overlooked something important.
Also important is to recognize when your code starts to smell. You can't accurately plan the architecture of any complex project up front. You need something "good enough" to start with, but you'll eventually run into a situation where your original design doesn't work anymore. Learn to recognize that moment, and refactor before the mess gets too impenetrable. But you do need a bit of mess before you refactor, otherwise you don't know what you're refactoring for. Also, cleaning up a mess makes you feel good.
Manning was very naive, arguably stupid, but she's still a hero. That's what you are when you take immense personal risk in order to do the right thing.
As for the topic at hand: I applaud companies for being open about each other's evils. The more transparency, the better.
Steve Jobs on the other hand, was adopted, didn't go to college, and got insanely rich. I think he even played computer games as a kid. But he died at age 37.
Wait, that'd mean he sold computers and phone tech while in Kindergarten. Your phone-using kid is already behind.
Tell that to someone who's been subjected systematic verbal and psychological abuse. Tell it to people who are subject to discrimination. Or rather, don't. Because telling them that what hurt them wasn't real, will also hurt them. There's good reason why even the US has anti-bullying legislation. Because very real people really are hurt by it.
It's easy to argue from a position of privilege that the things that hurt others aren't real, but that doesn't make it true. Rather, it's what makes privilege such a problem.
Holocaust denial hurts, but moreover, allowing the denial of such atrocities creates an atmosphere where more atrocities can happen, just like ignoring bullying will allow bullying to continue and lead to worse.
Discussion and debate have nothing to do with this. You are allowed to discuss and debate the Holocaust in Germany. Just don't present as factual that it didn't happen. There's no way that could possibly enhance any discussion on the subject.
You are comparing apples and oranges here. The Holocaust is not some wacky theory that may or may not be true. It's millions and millions of people being systematically murdered for political reasons. People who deny that are not simply arguing some crazy theory, they are building support for doing it again.
This isn't about government-sanctioned truth, it's about stopping harmful revisionism and preventing terrible atrocities.
So customers should STFU? I'm afraid I still don't get your point.
If you're renting an apartment, surely you should have the right to leave that apartment and rent a different one, if it turns out you don't like the first one?
And still, how is "the US" the same as some private corporations? (Though I admit the US political climate is definitely heading there.)
Courts do, generally. If I'm not mistaken, lying under oath is just also illegal in the US (though that doesn't mean it's also prosecuted, though that just makes it arbitrary enforcement, rather than free speech).
Slashdot Mirror
Persistence hunting have been filmed tracking their prey to exhaustion. I'd like to know what evidence those scientists have to reject observations.
Having read some dungeon/game/whatever master guides for some roleplaying games for fun, I've noticed the part that gets paid most attention to is the "how to keep the players fenced in the area you've prepared" section.
What kind of RPGs are those? Most GM advice is all about being flexible and figuring out what kind of game and play style the players enjoy most. Fencing them in has generally been considered one of the worst, frustrating and most destructive things a GM can do. And the fact that so many CRPGs do exactly that, frustrates me to no end. And that's exactly why I'd like to see games with an active GM AI making the game more flexible and dynamic. I don't doubt this is extremely hard, but I'd still like to see some experimentation in that direction.
"While the theme of the game (You Only Get One) was a pre-coded template, Angelina chose the color of the walls, the textures, the ambient sound track." and did a shitty job at doing it.
That's not very interesting. What would interest me is AI that shapes and modifies the game while you play it, based on your taste and play style.
Maybe sometime in the future someone will apologize for Gordon Brown.
So basically they should just print money?
One example: my Nexus 7 draws so much power, even when sleeping, that it is possible to connect it to a weakly charging USB port, come back a few hours later, and it has a lower charge level. I'm sure the same is true for other tablets, and possibly even some phones.
I've had this with my old Motorola Milestone. It lost power while charging on a weak charger. Even when turned off, it sometimes refuses to charge. Probably because it's old. I need higher powered chargers, or maybe a new phone.
I think they're drumming up the fire story because it shows how safe the car is. It looks superficially like bad PR, but it is actually very good PR, once you look at the data.
I doubt Musk cares much about expectations. Releasing a totally new product in inherently unpredictable. But showing people how good their car really is, that is a lot more interesting.
(How to not have your cars catch on fire is another issue :P )
It's an unsolved problem, but Tesla does a lot better at keeping the people in the car alive than other cars do.
You make a lot of unfounded claims, but you're wrong. Just solar alone can easily power the world many times over if we want to. The problem is that the political will is lacking. And solar isn't even the most abundant power source. Geothermal has many times that capacity.
The only thing we need is an efficient way to even out the difference between fluctuation demand and fluctuating supply. Nuclear can't do that; it produces a steady output, which is great for a baseline load, but not suitable for meeting the fluctuations in demand. At the moment, that's done by gas turbines. I'm not sure how suitable geothermal or hydro would be for that.
The basic problem with conservation and demand being reduced by increased cost, is that THE USA will go to war over energy concerns.
There, fixed that for you.
Nice try, but the only real difference between the USA and any other nation in this regard is $1 Trillion USD in defense spending...
And that's a very big difference. It means the USA can go to war over energy concerns.
There are still tons of ways to conserve energy without having to live in the cold. Europe and the US are really enormously wasteful with energy. Better insulation can save a lot of energy. More efficient cars. LED lighting. Smarter lighting that turns off when nobody is using it. Or, you know, just turning the light off yourself when you leave a room (for some mysterious reason my parents always leave the light on in their garage and I can't get them to stop).
And then there's the tremendous amount of food that we simply throw away. Now there's a serious case of wastefulness. That food used space and sunlight, probably a lot of chemicals, was harvested, transported, processed, transported again, possibly cooked, and then thrown away for no benefit to anyone. And if it was meat, it went through this process a dozen times over. We need to stop wasting food.
Also, energy prices have some breakpoints that sometimes lead to industries having to waste energy to save money. There's a lot of really stupid waste out there that has nothing to do with giving up anything you actually need.
If he wants to avoid red tape, his best bet is probably to relocate to one of the countries that hasn't ratified the treaty.
Or do it from international waters. He has a submarine, doesn't he? Make a floating launch platform, tow it to international waters, and launch there.
Good point. Thanks. I learned something new today.
If you have that many cases, you shouldn't implement them as a switch. A hashtable of function pointers, or functor objects, or command pattern instances, or similar, depending on your language and context.
I'm not too familiar with the implementation details, but isn't a switch statement basically a lightweight hash table without the hashing? (since everything is already an int)
Use a smaller font.
To me, a switch statement is the one exception where a function is allowed to be long. The basic rule to me is: the function should do only one thing. If it's more, split it up. A switch is a single thing that can take up a lot of lines, but the function should only have that switch, and each case should be short, simple and concise, or it should call a function that does the actual work for that case.
Basically, you'd need a switch with over a thousand cases to end up at 5500 lines.
That's exactly how I work. I've learned at least one new language right at the start of every new job, and even for languages I've got years of experience in, I still look stuff up. Thanks to Google, looking up language or framework specific stuff takes almost no time.
Learning how to plan is where I currently am. Pulling a number out of thin air clearly doesn't work. You need to cut the task up into smaller tasks, and those into smaller tasks still, and then describe the smallest, most trivial tasks in sufficient detail that anyone understands what it means. Once you've done that, you understand your problem well enough to estimate all the parts, add them up, and then multiply by 2 because you've certainly overlooked something important.
Also important is to recognize when your code starts to smell. You can't accurately plan the architecture of any complex project up front. You need something "good enough" to start with, but you'll eventually run into a situation where your original design doesn't work anymore. Learn to recognize that moment, and refactor before the mess gets too impenetrable. But you do need a bit of mess before you refactor, otherwise you don't know what you're refactoring for. Also, cleaning up a mess makes you feel good.
They don't have to be able to write a compiler, but they should be able to write code.
Manning was very naive, arguably stupid, but she's still a hero. That's what you are when you take immense personal risk in order to do the right thing.
As for the topic at hand: I applaud companies for being open about each other's evils. The more transparency, the better.
This sounds great. Shame I can't mod you up anymore.
Steve Jobs on the other hand, was adopted, didn't go to college, and got insanely rich. I think he even played computer games as a kid. But he died at age 37.
Wait, that'd mean he sold computers and phone tech while in Kindergarten. Your phone-using kid is already behind.
Words harm nobody.
Tell that to someone who's been subjected systematic verbal and psychological abuse. Tell it to people who are subject to discrimination. Or rather, don't. Because telling them that what hurt them wasn't real, will also hurt them. There's good reason why even the US has anti-bullying legislation. Because very real people really are hurt by it.
It's easy to argue from a position of privilege that the things that hurt others aren't real, but that doesn't make it true. Rather, it's what makes privilege such a problem.
Holocaust denial hurts, but moreover, allowing the denial of such atrocities creates an atmosphere where more atrocities can happen, just like ignoring bullying will allow bullying to continue and lead to worse.
Discussion and debate have nothing to do with this. You are allowed to discuss and debate the Holocaust in Germany. Just don't present as factual that it didn't happen. There's no way that could possibly enhance any discussion on the subject.
You are comparing apples and oranges here. The Holocaust is not some wacky theory that may or may not be true. It's millions and millions of people being systematically murdered for political reasons. People who deny that are not simply arguing some crazy theory, they are building support for doing it again.
This isn't about government-sanctioned truth, it's about stopping harmful revisionism and preventing terrible atrocities.
So customers should STFU? I'm afraid I still don't get your point.
If you're renting an apartment, surely you should have the right to leave that apartment and rent a different one, if it turns out you don't like the first one?
And still, how is "the US" the same as some private corporations? (Though I admit the US political climate is definitely heading there.)
Courts do, generally. If I'm not mistaken, lying under oath is just also illegal in the US (though that doesn't mean it's also prosecuted, though that just makes it arbitrary enforcement, rather than free speech).